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Research since 2015 showing definite patterns

Researchers are trying to predict the movements of North Atlantic right whales by establishing where they are likely to go to eat. (Stephan Savoia/AP)

Those trying to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale are putting enormous effort into tracking the massive marine mammals.

But a group of Dalhousie University researchers are concentrating their search on the location of the tiny creatures they eat in the hopes of predicting whale movements.

Oceanographer Christopher Taggart and his team have been mapping areas of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the whales are most likely follow their stomachs to food.

"We're trying to figure out what is driving the places where they go, and when they go there, and it's all to do with the oceanography and their food," Taggart said Friday at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, where Ottawa announced it would continue to fund his work.

The goal is "to monitor where the whales are, when they come and when they go," he said.

Information already put to use

Taggart said the information his team has collected in the Gulf since 2015 has already been put to use.

"In 2016 that pattern became similar, in 2017 it was similar again, in 2018 it's very similar again," he said.

"So now there are abilities to reroute traffic, slow down traffic, change the fishing effort in certain locations — at certain times so to reduce the likelihood of vessel strikes and and reduce the likelihood of entanglement."